Social Anthropology

Social anthropology or cultural anthropology is the science of human social and cultural behaviour and its development.

Social anthropology is conceptually and theoretically similar to sociology. Methodological and ethical problems entailed by social research, specifically anthropology,

Anthropology originally developed as the study of non-western cultures but many anthropologists now study western societies and the disciplines of sociology and anthropology have been tending to converge.

Social Anthropology and Sociology BSc. at Brunel University differs from social anthropology courses at other universities because of the broad social science (rather than biological or archaeological) perspective from which it is taught.

Social anthropology modules at Brunel University introduce students to the history and theory of social anthropology, and to some current issues in the fields of ethnicity, gender, religion, and kinship. Sociology topics include sociological theory, methods and contemporary social institutions.

Social anthropology research was given the highest possible award, a 5 rating, in its Research Assessment Exercise.

The Times Good University Guide ranked Brunel University second in the country for anthropology after Cambridge University.

Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University - 
Honors in Cultural and Social Anthropology - Requirements and Procedures - Unlike ordinary Majors, who meet faculty members primarily in classes, honors candidates work closely with a faculty advisor on an independent research project, culminating in an honors paper. stanford.edu/ dept/anthroCASA/pdf/DegreeApps/ughonors05-06.pdf 

The International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology (IJSA) is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published that will be monthly by Academic Journals (academicjournals.org/IJSA ). JSA is dedicated to increasing the depth of the subject across disciplines with the ultimate aim of expanding knowledge of the subject.

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology - Member of the Max Planck Society - eth.mpg.de/

Division of Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies, Göteborg University: 
sant.gu.se/english.htm - In the division research is carried out in several fields – Anthropology of religion; Environmental anthropology; Anthropology of Health; Migration and refugees; and Material Culture and Cross-cultural Aesthetics. 

The "natural preserve of anthropologists": social anthropology, scientific planning and development - Benoît de L'Estoile 
Social Science Information, Vol. 36, No. 2, 343-376 (1997) SAGE Publications
This article focuses on the relationship between practical and cognitive interests in the production of anthropological knowledge. It analyses the links between the projects of directed social transformation in "backward" societies that characterize the program of "development" since the 1920s, and the emergence of a discipline aiming at a scientific understanding of these societies. A reconstruction of the process of autonomization of British social anthropology in Africa during the interwar period thus offers at the same time a genealogy of the uses of anthropology in development. It is argued that, instead of viewing the relationship between anthropology and the colonial administration as an alternative between instrumentalization or independence, it is more fruitful to analyse it as structured by both common interests in producing knowledge about colonized societies and a competition between academic specialists and "practical men". The "professionalization" of social anthropology and its institutionalization as an academic discipline then appears as a process of construction of a monopoly of competence on non-western social phenomena. - ssi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/343

Economics and Social Anthropology—Reconciling Differences 
Peter J. Buckley, Malcolm Chapman, Centre for International Business, University of Leeds (CIBUL), School of Business and Economic Studies, University of Leeds,
Human Relations, Vol. 49, No. 9, 1123-1150 (1996) © 1996 The Tavistock Institute
This paper is the outcome of collaborative work between an economist and a social anthropologist. It explores the differences of outlook and approach between these two subjects, both in general, and in the specific context of a research project, "The Management of Cooperative Strategies," which tests economistic hypotheses using methods largely derived from social anthropology. There remain major dissonanaces between the two subjects, but an attempt is made here to find fruitful common ground. - hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/49/9/1123

Is Social Anthropology Still Worth the Trouble? A Response to Some Echoes from America - Author: Godelier M.
Source: Ethnos, Volume 65, Number 3, 1 November 2000, pp. 301-316(16)
Abstract: More than broadly agreeing on the need for a critical deconstruction of the very foundations of anthropological theory and practice aimed at uncovering the elements implicitly excluded from analysis, the silences in a reasoning process and the blind spots in observations, the author stresses need to distinguish between this kind of deconstruction, which is positive and essential for any knowledge-building activity, and another deconstruction which can lead to hyper-relativism. The second tendency, baptized 'postmodernism' and highly popular in the USA, is a largely overblown enterprise of deconstructive dissolution which, if carried to its logical conclusion, threatens to submerge social anthropology in the rising tide of 'Cultural Studies'. Postmodernist theory is a somewhat eclectic mixture of (often contradictory) ideas borrowed from such French thinkers as Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard, which is advanced in support of the idea that a 'science of man', in other words, a set of systematic observations, analyses and findings subjected to testing and verification, is not possible. - ingentaconnect.com

The Role of Social Anthropology in the Debate on Funeral Rites in Africa 
Author: van 't Spijker, Gerard - Exchange, Volume 34, Number 3, 2005, pp. 248-268(21)
Abstract: In view of the actual debate on funeral rites in Christian Churches in Africa, a revision of the old position of missionaries that forbade all traditional ritual concerning death as belonging to paganism should be undertaken on the basis of social anthropological research which analyses structure and function of the funeral practices. Thus the mourning rites are understood as means of purification and reconciliation of the bereaved extended family. Parallels between African rituals and those of Israel of the Old Testament may also be taken into account. The efforts towards contextualisation of the Christian message in days of mourning by the ancient Ethiopian Church and by churches in Zimbabwe of today may serve as guidelines for developing rituals marking the end of mourning focused on reconciliation and the victory of life over death. - ingentaconnect.com

BRITISH SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY: A Retrospective
Jonathan Spencer, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh,
Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 29: 1-24 (Volume publication date October 2000)
This article reviews the history of British social anthropology, concentrating on the expansion of the discipline in the British university sector since the 1960s. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between social anthropology and the main source of its funding, the British government, in particular the Economic and Social Research Council. After a particularly difficult time in the 1980s, social anthropology in the 1990s has grown swiftly. In this period of growth, formerly crucial boundaries—between academic anthropology and practical policy-related research, between "social" and "cultural" anthropology—appear to have withered away. Yet British social anthropology retains much of its distinctive identity, not least because of the peculiar institutional structures, such as the research seminar, in which the social anthropological habitus is reproduced in new generations of researchers. - arjournals.annualreviews.org

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Samuel M. Wilson and ­ Leighton C. Peterson ­ Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712; email: s.wilson@mail.utexas.edu leighton@mail.utexas.edu 
Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31: 449-467 (Volume publication date October 2002)
Information and communication technologies based on the Internet have enabled the emergence of new sorts of communities and communicative practices—phenomena worthy of the attention of anthropological researchers. Despite early assessments of the revolutionary nature of the Internet and the enormous transformations it would bring about, the changes have been less dramatic and more embedded in existing practices and power relations of everyday life. This review explores researchers' questions, approaches, and insights within anthropology and some relevant related fields, and it seeks to identify promising new directions for study. The general conclusion is that the technologies comprising the Internet, and all the text and media that exist within it, are in themselves cultural products. Anthropology is thus well suited to the further investigation of these new, and not so new, phenomena. - arjournals.annualreviews.org

Social anthropology in sensitive research contexts. A case study: State prisons, Province of Neuquén, Argentina* - Beatriz Kalinsky 
International Social Science Journal Volume 56 Issue 179 Page 153 - March 2004
This paper discusses some of the methodological and ethical problems entailed by social research, specifically anthropology, in State prisons in the Province of Neuquén, Argentina. Traditional anthropological research methodology has to be combined with a range of additional precautions because this is a sensitive field for research where a balance (almost always an unstable one) must be struck among the different actors involved: inmates, warders, the authorities, members of the judiciary and inmates' families. Particular account needs to be taken of the relations among inmates, and between these and their warders, to ensure that existing strains are not exacerbated. At the same time it is important not to take sides, since the aim is to sustain as cordial and open a dialogue as possible with all parties. This does not mean, however, that the social researcher is prevented from taking an ethical stance towards crimes, non-observance of inmates' rights, or outright, repeated violations of these rights. This is a field of conflict where researchers have to mark out a position of their own, remaining independent of the actors involved while keeping channels of communication open so that the research can be carried forward. - blackwell-synergy.com

Industry and inequality: The social anthropology of Indian labour : Mark Holstrom, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984) pp. 342.

The Building of British Social Anthropology: W. H. R. Rivers and His Cambridge Disciples in the Development of Kinship Studies, 1898-1931. by Ian Langham 

Addiction as a life style: on the social anthropology of addiction [Article in German]
Emrich HM, Eggers C. - Med. Hochschule Hannover, Abt. Klinische Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Hannover. - Psychiatr Prax. 2001 Mar;28(2):55-9.
Regularly the unsolved problems of addiction- and dependence-research are discussed in the sense of the psycho-body-dichotomy, arguing that the biological mechanisms of reward-systems and their pathobiochemistry have to be confronted with the psychological and philosophical/anthropological dimensions within persons. The present paper, however, tries to demonstrate that this dichotomy is insufficient insofar as social-anthropological components of being addicted, which represent integrative constituents of a theory of addiction, are neglected within such a scheme. The developmental-psychological and philosophical-psychological aspects of socialization are considered and related to internal valuating systems and reality models regarding the problems of drugs and dependency. Herein it is shown that especially the model of Rene Girard, constituting "mimetic triangulation", is applicable to the understanding of the microsocialization of drug-consumers. This is also demonstrated in film-examples. It is shown that the problem of drug-addiction cannot be solved from a neurobiological/biochemical--and also a psychotherapeutic/psychoanalytic concept--without incorporating the dynamics and the value-worlds within groups which should also be considered to be therapeutically influenceable. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Syllabus - Social Anthropology and Sociology BSc
Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex - brunel.ac.uk/ courses/ug/S/SCLANTH-SOC.shtml#aims

Course Aims
Social anthropology at Brunel is one of the more outward-looking and cosmopolitan social sciences, its subject being the documentation and explanation of cultural diversity. It is particularly suited to students who are curious about their own and other societies and who are interested in understanding social processes and meanings in the world around them. You will apply the ideas of social anthropology to practical issues and will gain a solid grounding in the social sciences (sociology, psychology, media and communications). Special emphasis in placed on cross-cultural studies.

Sociologists are concerned with developing theories that explain the changing nature of social behaviour in their own and other societies. The kinds of question with which they are concerned are: what is society? How and why is it changing? What are the opportunities for future change and development?

The earliest sociologists tried to understand the major issues of their time - poverty, unemployment, social conflict, and the social and economic consequences of rapid and profound industrial and economic change. Sociologists today continue to examine how such social issues are redefined by contemporary processes of individualisation, globalisation and the rapid growth of new forms of communication.

Within this broad framework, a central theme of Sociology at Brunel is the study of the development of techno-cultural phenomena such as science, technology, and environmental issues which straddle traditional conceptual distinctions between the social, the natural, the technical and the material. It also needs to be stressed that, at Brunel, Sociology has developed a particularly close relationship with Communication and Media Studies, reflecting and emphasising the central and ever-increasing importance of the communications media within our culture. Among the more specific interests of Brunel sociologists are, for example, the social construction of science and technology, social theory, celebrity culture, the influence the media, environmental risk, feminist if virtual society, media regulation, and language and social interaction. These various inter strongly reflected in the options available third level of our degree course.

This degree is particularly suited to students who are curious about their own and other societies and who are interested in understanding social processes and meanings in the world around them. You will apply the ideas of social anthropology and sociology to practical issues and will gain a solid grounding in human sciences (sociology, psychology, media and communications). Special emphasis in placed on cross-cultural studies.

Special Features

Teaching and student support are rated "excellent" by Teaching Quality Assessment inspectors.

Social anthropology research was given the highest possible award, a 5 rating, in its Research Assessment Exercise.

The Times Good University Guide ranked Brunel second in the country for anthropology after Cambridge University.

This course differs from social anthropology courses at other universities because of the broad social science (rather than biological or archaeological) perspective from which it is taught.

There are opportunities to take non-human sciences options such as law, management, economics, politics, history and languages.

Students have the opportunity to study a semester or a year at one of 15 European Universities.

There is an exchange programme with the University of New Mexico's famous Anthropology Department.

You can develop ethnographic/sociological expertise through work placement experience. Students carry out two 22-week placements.

You can carry out fieldwork placements overseas. Many students spend their second work placement abroad, engaged in research in countries such as: South Africa, Botswana, India and Nepal.

Students can gain full-time employment with organisations where they carried out their work experience.

Facilities are also rated "excellent" by TQA inspectors.

Rigorous training is provided in a range of methodologies and research skills appropriate to social anthropology and sociology.

Content

Level 1
You will gain a broad social science training in your first year. This includes an introduction to key theoretical issues and practical training in research methods, such as interviewing and participant observation.

In addition to modules in social anthropology, psychology, sociology and communications and media studies, you will have the opportunity to study topics from other disciplines: history, economics, management, politics, finance, law or languages (French, German, Spanish and Italian at a variety of ability levels).

Level 2
Social anthropology modules introduce students to the history and theory of social anthropology, and to some current issues in the fields of ethnicity, gender, religion, and kinship. Sociology topics include sociological theory, methods and contemporary social institutions. You also continue your studies of research methods, and conduct your own research exercises.

Level 3
You can choose from a wide range of advanced options in topics as varied as family, gender, kinship, ethnicity, medical anthropology and cultural patterns of consumption.

Modules
You will select course modules from those offered by each of the two subjects:
Sociology BSc
Social Anthropology BSc

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